Why is DSP considered the hardest subject to study at school?

I find DSP the hardest subject to become good at. Other students like me 
at school also complain how hard the DSP courses are compared to the 
other EE courses and other engineering courses in general.

I think some of the reasons are:

1. DSP courses Has the most math. (including complex variables).
2. Two domains to worry about, time and frequency. Jumping from one to 
the other can get confusing.
3. Two other domains to worry about, continuous time vs. discrete time.
4. Many relations between many concepts to get right.
5. One has to also be good in programming.
6. Demodulation is just hard. Filter design is hard.
7. Need to also be good in probability and statistics to do random 
signals (real life).
8. Has to know how to do lab work also. Hard stuff.

And many more. May be you can add more items to the list.

Do many of the DSP experts here also found DSP hard at school? It seems 
only the very smart can become good at DSP.

I think one is either born to do DSP or not. I think it is genetics.

--Nasser

On 07/08/2010 12:55 PM, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
>
> I find DSP the hardest subject to become good at. Other students like me
> at school also complain how hard the DSP courses are compared to the
> other EE courses and other engineering courses in general.
>
> I think some of the reasons are:
>
> 1. DSP courses Has the most math. (including complex variables).
> 2. Two domains to worry about, time and frequency. Jumping from one to
> the other can get confusing.
> 3. Two other domains to worry about, continuous time vs. discrete time.
> 4. Many relations between many concepts to get right.
> 5. One has to also be good in programming.
> 6. Demodulation is just hard. Filter design is hard.
> 7. Need to also be good in probability and statistics to do random
> signals (real life).
> 8. Has to know how to do lab work also. Hard stuff.
>
> And many more. May be you can add more items to the list.
>
> Do many of the DSP experts here also found DSP hard at school? It seems
> only the very smart can become good at DSP.
>
> I think one is either born to do DSP or not. I think it is genetics.

I found DSP to be Fun Fun Fun.  But then, in general the more fun I was 
having the more my classmates were bitching and moaning.  (E&M was fun, 
too).

DSP certainly keeps your brain stretched and limber.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

On 8 Jul, 21:55, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:

> Do many of the DSP experts here also found DSP hard at school?

Yes and no.

I thought the techncalities of DSP were hard, but I was motivated
to learn. By the time I took my first DSP class I had already
worked with data analysis for several years, in a summer vacancy.
As far as I was concerned, DSP was a tool worth learning to do
that job better.

Rune

On Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:55:27 -0700, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> wrote:

>
>I find DSP the hardest subject to become good at. Other students like me 
>at school also complain how hard the DSP courses are compared to the 
>other EE courses and other engineering courses in general.

I'm going to save this post, and break it out next time someone tells me how
hard the course of study was for their MBA.

>I think some of the reasons are:
>
>1. DSP courses Has the most math. (including complex variables).
>2. Two domains to worry about, time and frequency. Jumping from one to 
>the other can get confusing.
>3. Two other domains to worry about, continuous time vs. discrete time.
>4. Many relations between many concepts to get right.
>5. One has to also be good in programming.
>6. Demodulation is just hard. Filter design is hard.
>7. Need to also be good in probability and statistics to do random 
>signals (real life).
>8. Has to know how to do lab work also. Hard stuff.
>
>And many more. May be you can add more items to the list.

9. Our array indices start with "0".

10. We call sqrt(-1) "j" instead of "i".

11. We have an identity crisis -- we constantly bombarded with questions like,
"If you're not a hardware engineer, and you're not a software engineer, then how
can you be an electrical engineer?"

>Do many of the DSP experts here also found DSP hard at school? It seems 
>only the very smart can become good at DSP.
>
>I think one is either born to do DSP or not. I think it is genetics.

The signal processing engineers with whom I have become acquainted are the sort
who were good at ALL technical subjects.  Non technical subjects -- that's a
different story.

Greg

On 7/8/2010 3:55 PM, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
>
> I find DSP the hardest subject to become good at. Other students like me
> at school also complain how hard the DSP courses are compared to the
> other EE courses and other engineering courses in general.
>
> I think some of the reasons are:
>
> 1. DSP courses Has the most math. (including complex variables).
> 2. Two domains to worry about, time and frequency. Jumping from one to
> the other can get confusing.
> 3. Two other domains to worry about, continuous time vs. discrete time.
> 4. Many relations between many concepts to get right.
> 5. One has to also be good in programming.
> 6. Demodulation is just hard. Filter design is hard.
> 7. Need to also be good in probability and statistics to do random
> signals (real life).
> 8. Has to know how to do lab work also. Hard stuff.
>
> And many more. May be you can add more items to the list.
>
> Do many of the DSP experts here also found DSP hard at school? It seems
> only the very smart can become good at DSP.
>
> I think one is either born to do DSP or not. I think it is genetics.

DSP wasn't an academic subject when I was in school, but I learned the 
math it needs for other purposes. Try designing vestigial-sideband 
filters using waveguides of different dimensions, or calculating an 
antenna's radiation pattern. I don't see that DSP is any harder than 
other physical sciences covered in depth. The design of steam turbines 
is interesting too. I was graded on all of those topics and more.

DSP is hard because a result is either right or wrong. Unlike some other 
subjects, correctness isn't negotiable. All of science and math is like 
that.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������

On Jul 9, 7:55=A0am, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:
> I find DSP the hardest subject to become good at. Other students like me
> at school also complain how hard the DSP courses are compared to the
> other EE courses and other engineering courses in general.
>
> I think some of the reasons are:
>
> 1. DSP courses Has the most math. (including complex variables).
> 2. Two domains to worry about, time and frequency. Jumping from one to
> the other can get confusing.
> 3. Two other domains to worry about, continuous time vs. discrete time.
> 4. Many relations between many concepts to get right.
> 5. One has to also be good in programming.
> 6. Demodulation is just hard. Filter design is hard.
> 7. Need to also be good in probability and statistics to do random
> signals (real life).
> 8. Has to know how to do lab work also. Hard stuff.
>
> And many more. May be you can add more items to the list.
>
> Do many of the DSP experts here also found DSP hard at school? It seems
> only the very smart can become good at DSP.
>
> I think one is either born to do DSP or not. I think it is genetics.
>
> --Nasser

ahhh diddums...you should try some advanced control engineering and
see how you get on.
No sympathy.

Hardy

Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:

> 
> I find DSP the hardest subject to become good at.

If you know any subject easy to become good at, let me know.

VLV

On Jul 8, 3:55=A0pm, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:
> I find DSP the hardest subject to become good at. Other students like me
> at school also complain how hard the DSP courses are compared to the
> other EE courses and other engineering courses in general.
>
> I think some of the reasons are:
>
> 1. DSP courses Has the most math. (including complex variables).
> 2. Two domains to worry about, time and frequency. Jumping from one to
> the other can get confusing.
> 3. Two other domains to worry about, continuous time vs. discrete time.
> 4. Many relations between many concepts to get right.
> 5. One has to also be good in programming.
> 6. Demodulation is just hard. Filter design is hard.
> 7. Need to also be good in probability and statistics to do random
> signals (real life).
> 8. Has to know how to do lab work also. Hard stuff.
>
> And many more. May be you can add more items to the list.
>
> Do many of the DSP experts here also found DSP hard at school? It seems
> only the very smart can become good at DSP.
>
> I think one is either born to do DSP or not. I think it is genetics.
>
> --Nasser

When I went to school (1980), although DSP was taught in the EE
school, the EE's found it harder than the physics and math people. I
can't say who did better at the actual application after graduation. I
think the difficulty is related to background, not genetics.

Dirk

On 7/8/2010 2:07 PM, HardySpicer wrote:

> ahhh diddums...you should try some advanced control engineering and
> see how you get on.
> No sympathy.
>
> Hardy

But DSP and control in a way are interrelated?

A filter is just a system. IIR has feedback. Feedback is used in DSP. 
Using Costas loop (phase-locked loop) in demodulation sues feedback loop 
to detect carrier frequency, and I am sure there many other examples.

Matlab uses state space approach in converting analog filter to digital 
filter. Modern control theory is all state space.

For me, control/ linear system theory/ signal processing are all very 
much interrelated.   Advanced control theory goes a little more crazy 
with advanced math and matrix theory than DSP, but at the end of the 
day, it is all just a system, with input/output and feedback and fancy 
disturbances thrown in to make it real.

I love to study control theory also, and I also found it very hard. I 
think control engineers and DSP engineers have the same genetics.

--Nasser

"Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> wrote in news:i15afd$dds$1
@speranza.aioe.org:

> 
> I find DSP the hardest subject to become good at. Other students like me 
> at school also complain how hard the DSP courses are compared to the 
> other EE courses and other engineering courses in general.
> 
> I think some of the reasons are:
> 
> 1. DSP courses Has the most math. (including complex variables).
> 2. Two domains to worry about, time and frequency. Jumping from one to 
> the other can get confusing.
> 3. Two other domains to worry about, continuous time vs. discrete time.
> 4. Many relations between many concepts to get right.
> 5. One has to also be good in programming.
> 6. Demodulation is just hard. Filter design is hard.
> 7. Need to also be good in probability and statistics to do random 
> signals (real life).
> 8. Has to know how to do lab work also. Hard stuff.
> 
> And many more. May be you can add more items to the list.
> 
> Do many of the DSP experts here also found DSP hard at school? It seems 
> only the very smart can become good at DSP.
> 
> I think one is either born to do DSP or not. I think it is genetics.
> 
> --Nasser
> 
> 
> 
> 

I always thought that "fields" was the hardest EE course. I only had one 
DSP course and it was horrible. This was due more to the reference 
(Stanley) and perhaps the era (1970s). At the same time, it wasn't really 
hard to do the math, it was hard to see the relevance (there were no DSP 
chips, yet)

I started out as an analog signal processing engineer. When I started to 
practice DSP, I found things to be more the same than different. If you can 
solve problkems in the s domain you can solve them in the z domain.

The biggest problem with many of the college texts is that they often do a 
poor job of connecting the math to actual applications. I learned more DSP 
from a few of the manufacturer's books than many of the more academic 
college books. The manufacture's books were more like "Here is the theory 
and here is the specific code that implements it" This let me connect the 
dots. I got much more out of the more theoretical texts after I learned 
basics from the other sources.

This is why Lyons, Frerking and other books are so popular. O&S is all math 
without enough "Why do I care?"

Al Clark
www.danvillesignal.com